Radulphe
Radulf (* in France, 12th century, also called Roudolphe or Raoul ) was a French Cistercian monk who left his monastery without the permission of his superiors to move into the Rhineland and there taking advantage of the crusade enthusiasm as part of the Second Crusade ( 1144-1147 ) for the murder of the Jews call "enemies of the Christian religion."
Archbishop Arnold I of Cologne, which offered the Jews in his residence protection against the incited by Radulf population, as well as the Archbishop of Mainz Henry I. Felix von Harburg called in this case Bernard of Clairvaux, Abbot of Clairvaux and the Cistercian top to help and they were also given.
Bernhard immediately responded with letters to Radulf and also traveled even to the Rhineland to Mainz, where he met in September 1146 under Radulf. Radulf was indeed supported by the people, Bernhard complained Radulf but on account of its high-handed sermons and banned the forced baptism and murder of the Jews. The lending of money at interest by the Jews, he defended explicitly, otherwise the Christians of this activity would take, what had been forbidden by the Second Lateran Council of 1139.
Here, in the literature, various motives for Bernard's intervention will be accepted. On the one hand it is stated that Bernhard had rejected the forced baptism for dogmatic reasons and the Jews then assigned by the testimony of Scripture a special role.
Others assume financial motives. The money-lending was very important for the princes and princes of the Church, because they could raise special taxes for permission to lending money and protect the lender, which were later called Jews shelves. This was why, by Radulfs unauthorized calls have been affected the finances of the prince what brought this to Bernhard to move to action.
Although Radulf had the support of the population, Bernhard was able to prevail and Radulf went reluctantly back to the monastery.